


Does Not Follow

by jenni3penny



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-18 16:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Response to lilacmermaid25's April Challenge (three things: downpour, painkillers, spice rack). Post-S2, pre-S3. Fluff, in progress. "Because the fact that he was achingly in love with every goddamn inch of her still didn't negate the fact that she didn't know where he kept the extra toothpaste. Or where the coffee filters were. Not anymore."





	1. Chapter One

He was evenly torn between wanting to mock her mercilessly and needing to cuddle her up into a pile of dryer warmed blankets just to stop her from shivering. She was utterly rain-drenched, from the top of her head and down the delicate length of her. And flecked with bits of... dirt? Mud? He didn't even know (and probably didn't want to know, actually). The silken thinness of her shirt was plastered to her skin and thank Christ she'd chosen to wear navy blue that morning rather than a paler color. Her hair was a waved mess of wet and plastered flat to her head and down her neck to each shivering shoulder. Everything about how drenched she was had him bending more toward wanting to take care of her than make fun of her.

Will bit back on the smirk, even knowing she'd catch its appearance before he could entirely tame it. She did, too. Her features panned right into an indignant glaring and he swallowed hard as she stared him down, silently daring him to ridicule her.

They'd been engaged for two and a half days and he still couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that even a sodden and rumpled and soaked MacKenzie McHale was a creature after his own bitter fucking heart. Because she looked like her own Dantean level of Torrential-Downpour-Hell... but still sort of soppily adorable all at once.

Mac was formidable on her best days, sure.

She just didn't look it when her clothes weighed more wet than she did dry.

“Don't even start,” Mac muttered at him, the blue of her eyes going gray and murderous as she glared across the open doorway of his apartment. “I can see what you're thinking.”

“I didn't say anything,” he gentled back, humor bypassing any intelligent brain cell that was left in his head - especially considering the look on her damp face was its own form of physical threat. Still, something about how soaked she'd gotten had sparkled up the color of her eyes and he couldn't help the affectionate grinning.

Will lifted his hand up under her chin, drawing her head up so that he could kiss against a few leftover rain droplets, catching them off the curve of her cheekbone with a brush of his lips. “Lemme get you a towel or three.”

She made a grunted sound of either annoyance or acceptance, one that implied that her mood was probably dependent on how much longer she had to stand around dressed as a wet mop. Will stepped back into his apartment, already turning to grab a couple towels from the linen closet. The sound of her heels against his hall flooring was exactly what he didn't hear and it caught him up uncomfortable. The lack of sound tugged his attention back and he paused, turning a glance back toward her.

Mac was still wet and leaned up along the door frame, a look of caution or uncertainty (he couldn't actually decipher which) clouding up the usual pretty blue of her eyes. She had the door half closed and herself wedged in the opening, leaned up the frame and even to the lintel. All of her was hovered on the line between in and out and the way she shivered from the wet chill suddenly looked more like fear than physical response.

Reflexively he turned back toward her, reaching out to her stillness and touching against her waist gently. “You _can_ come in, Mac.”

She blinked up suddenly, seemingly surprised by his commentary, stirred up by his attention. “And ruin your flooring?”

A sudden uncomfortable flush of heat went through him, a flummox of emotions all jumbled up between frustration, anger, confusion. He hated the disconnect that somehow still existed, the deep gulf that lived between them apart and them together, as a pair. Going from fighting constantly to friendship and finding loyalty again? It'd taken a good couple of years to find their footing again. But then straight from deep friendship to being engaged... after years of not being in a relationship? Felt a little like showing up blind to the wedding and wondering where they'd be sleeping that night.

So, no, he couldn't entirely blame her for awkwardly hovering in his doorway.

Because the fact that he was achingly in love with every goddamn inch of her still didn't negate the fact that she didn't know where he kept the extra toothpaste. Or where the coffee filters were. Not anymore.

The fact that they'd fallen back into some amazingly satisfying sex like ace athletes at a triathlon meant diddly-shit when it came down to the fact that she had absolutely no idea which day the recyclables went out _and_ she obviously felt self conscious about it.

“MacKenzie, get in here.” He exhaled sharply, noting how deeply she chewed at the inside of her cheek as she stepped lagging into the apartment, letting him pull at the damp fabric of her skirt and push the door closed at once. He ducked into her sight-line, destroying any attempt she made at looking elsewhere. “ _Our_ flooring, I would argue. Strip.”

Mac blinked as he tugged at the bottom of her shirt, extricating it from the waistline of her skirt with quick and unapologetic movements. “ _Will_.”

“I've seen you naked, I swear,” he tossed off, getting closer to frustrated and farther from bemused as she unintentionally shivered at him. She let him start undoing buttons from the bottom up, her hands resting against the fabric of the button down he was wearing and gripping it up between her fingers. “Once or twice, at least.”

“Billy,” she hummed between them apologetically, her voice losing its annoyance and any particular caution she may have had about making his home her own. Instead it flooded up with a little heat and affection as he pulled open the wet shirt and pushed it back from her shoulders.

Will nodded into her trailed off quietness, self consciously smiling as she leaned up into him and out of the wet clothing. He pulled the sleeves down slack off her arms, letting her lean into his chest as he worked each cuff from each slender wrist. “You're shivering, hon.”

He watched her face with interest as he said it, head turned as he caught the sweet-hearted way she bit onto her bottom lip at the endearment. Her chin dipped farther down toward her collarbone and she tucked in even closer to the center of him. The shirt went forgotten against the floor with a slopped sound and he couldn't have given two bear shits in the woods about whether or not it was gonna ruin the wooden flooring, not when she curled her arms around the middle of him and squeezed. Will snorted a laugh into damp hair and rubbed the flats of his palms against her upper arms, chafing to warm her up a little. He glanced back down over her as she drew her arms up between them, body tightening as a strong shiver riveted through her frame. His cheek brushed against hers, hands still rubbing warmth into chilled skin.

She was already fingering the buttons of his own shirt as she lifted her jaw against his and hugged closer, “Can I wear your shirt?”

“The one I'm wearing?” he chuckled, utterly incapable of still being supposedly annoyed or even fake mad when she was just in a wet bra and skirt and stretched up the center of his chest, not-so-subtly trying to divest him of his shirt.

“Smells like you.”

Sometimes Mac had the uncanny ability to find exactly the right thing to say at any given moment, the exact thing that would bend him into doing exactly what she'd wanted in the first place. And she'd say it in that half throaty whisper.

And sometimes she used her powers for ' _Good_ ' too...

“Strip first,” he demanded sharply, no leering or teasing implied. No possible way that she could assume he was joking when he used the Pissed-Off-News-Anchor tone on her. Well, mostly no possible way.

She didn't move at first and without another moment of hesitation he reached against her waist, palms sloping toward her back so that he could undo the tiny zipper on her skirt as she watched his face with doting amusement. Her eyes were still hooded and she was still just as hushed quiet but she let him push the skirt from her hips and down, stroking it off her and to the floor before both his hands took a wander up the backs of her thighs. She leaned her weight farther into him and the sturdy ballast of his chest as she slid her shoes off and a surprise of sound came up her throat, a noise that instantly had his hands tightening against her. It was a hemmed little noise of pain, something she couldn't have swallowed, a clue that she couldn't have hidden from him even if she'd had the time to try and cover it up. Will leaned his shoulders back, gripped against her waist and watched her shiver as residual pain ghosted pale over her face.

He moved to step back and she tripped into trying to gain her own balance, near double-stepping and flinching hard as she minced the weight off her bare right foot.

Both his hands pressed against her hips as he stepped back, forcing her to hold her own weight as he moved farther back and he's wasn't surprised as she flinched forward. Not surprised, but certainly a little pissed that she hadn't said something before.

“You're limping?” he accused, voice gritting low.

“It was raining.” As though the simple explanation was an encyclopedia's worth in answer.

Sometimes she really didn't make a damn bit of sense to him.

He snorted disbelief with one brief shake of his head. “Non sequitur.”

“It was raining and I didn't want to get wet so I ran two blocks in the rain and - ”

“And you were wearing the most ridiculous heels I've ever seen and you hurt yourself. Am I right?”

Mac fidgeted a little, shrugged thin shoulders at him and tried for a cute-sy smile as he watched her. She argued back with minimal effort, voice quieter than expected as his hand lifted up along her jawline. “They're certainly not the _most_ ridiculous you've ever seen. They're actually fairly - ”

“Jesus fuck, MacKenzie. _Really_?” The supposed surprise in his voice was obviously no surprise to her and she just sheepishly smirked as he lifted her head to his, forcing her chin up so that he could drop his mouth onto hers. He kissed her slowly, purposely keeping the stroke of his tongue against hers lazy and taunting. Will kept the kiss gentle right up until she moaned onto his tongue and both of his hands reflexively lifted against her cheeks before he dug into wet tendrils of dark hair.

“C'mere.” he whispered into the end of the kiss, stepping into her hips as his hands dropped to her waist. He pulled up, forcing her arms up as he lifted her. Her legs wrapped against him faster than he'd expected and he simply grinned idiotically into how pliant she was being.

“Billy?” Her voice seemed to sigh right out of her lungs as she tightened around him, the sound of it wrapping up around his name as she hugged at his shoulders. Her head dropped onto her own bicep as she relaxed into his hold, her face buried into the side of his neck as she actually let out a real sigh of pleasure.

He shifted her higher on his waist as he headed for the bedroom, humming a questioning sound up her temple, “What?”

One kiss struck just before his ear as she shrugged, her breath warm on skin. “I'm just happy.”

Will breathed a laugh onto wet hair. “You look like a melted mud puddle, sweetheart.”

She pouted her kiss against his mouth, blocking his sense of direction with a smile. “Non sequitur.”


	2. Chapter Two

There was heat in the way her knuckles kept teasing against the back of his ear as he led her into the kitchen, her touch both purposeful and affectionate. Most of her weight was pressed into his side, one of her hands up on his shoulder as he sidled her through the doorway and toward the counter. Will unconsciously ducked his head away from her teasing even as he lifted his right hand to catch her fingers still. Instead of leaning into her playfulness he turned her a stern look and angled up along her front, studying how her hair had already darkened the fabric of the gray-striped button down she'd stolen right off him. He stalled her up near the left of the sink, leaning her toward the edge of the counter with the most grown-adult-seriousness he could muster.

Not that his version of seriousness ever much compared to her brand of 'damn stubborn'.

But the fact she was so gently smiling at him even while in pain, limping along with him (legs bare) because she'd refused to be carried again...? The simply genuine way she was just smiling at him as she reached up to messily tie her hair back?

Fucking hell... She was dangerous. To him, to his resolve, to his blood pressure.

He stepped her slowly back against the edge of the counter when she was finished and nodded, hands catching onto her hips as she watched him, her blue eyes wide with affection. Without any other warning he just lifted against her, chuckling as she laughed quietly, her hands catching into his t-shirt as he stayed gripped up on her waist and leaned forward. Mac let him lean between her knees, both his palms sliding down to turn flat against the counter on each side of her. He opened his mouth to give her a razzing and she deftly interrupted it, lifting her mouth to his and taking his breath right out of him. The groan he made into her kiss was completely involuntary (and utterly embarrassing). And she laughed pleasure in response, tugging him closer with a jerk from both hands before she pressed her tongue along his and made him reflexively wrap around her. He sucked against her tongue as her fingers pressed against him, tasted late-in-the-day-coffee as she whimpered.

_God_ , she was so small in comparison, delicate and still chilled to the touch. All MacKenzie, all the things he'd missed so terribly in six years. The way she tasted, the way she kissed (like a slow moving storm, rumbling with electric promise), the exact way she liked to rub the backs of her knuckles down the center of his chest. It was something she'd always done, something only she'd ever done, something he'd never expected to find anywhere else.

And the simple thing was, for him... there wasn't a kiss Mac could give him that he wouldn't desperately want to enjoy to its full potential. And he must've done something right, because her fingers were tangled in cotton hemline and pulling him closer between her legs as she unconsciously matched his moan. And any moment wherein Mac was gonna draw him farther between her legs was a moment he was going to savor, all other external stimuli be damned. In fact, any moment he was leaned up the front of her and she was wearing black lace underwear (which he knew for a damned fact) was a moment that was going to lead to him palming her thighs and digging his thumbs into already tensed up muscle.

“ _Billy_ ,” she exhaled the nickname like it was the only word she knew how to use properly from an unfamiliar language. Then she near blushed at her own breathlessness and they both ended up laughing into how wide-eyed, flushed, and spaced out the other seemed. “Hi.”

“I'm officially never gonna get anything accomplished at home, Mac,” he told her with a whisper, taking another chaste but soft kiss off her lips. “Remind me that all actual work needs to be done at the office.”

“Agreed,” she nodded, near blushing as her fingertips rubbed down his chest and pressed against his stomach. “Same. You're absolutely right. We're hopeless.”

“Shameless,” he countered.

“And that as well, yes.”

Will grinned as she sheepishly looked up at him, breathy laughter passing between her lips before she shook her head. He lifted his hand and two fingers took a swipe at the strands of hair she hadn't gotten clasped back, tucking them up behind her left ear. Her eyes fluttered closed at the movement and he took advantage of the calm stillness, leaning forward so that he could open the cupboard that was up behind her right shoulder.

When she was watching him once again he pointed toward the open door. “Naproxen's in the spice rack, which lives in the cupboard. If it's missing something you want just add it to the grocery list.”

He noted the way her face crumpled into confusion as his words sank in. It only took her a few brief moments to pull her head back and squint. “When did you start keeping prescription medication in your spice rack?”

“Bottle's childproof. Not like I'm gonna accidentally spike the spaghetti sauce,” he threw back, voice distracted and mulled low as he rubbed his thumb in a crescent under the knobbed and bony bit of her ankle. The sudden jump of her body matched the annoyed little huffed sound she made and the near whimper that jerked up her throat. Will looked up sharply, stilling his hands so that one braced the back of her ankle while the other went curled on the top of her foot. “That hurt?”

She made a face that mutely implied he was an absolute imbecile and Will just dropped his glance again, lifting gingerly as he turned his head to study the swollen bruising and discoloration that marred the side of her foot. A purpling line edged along the outside of her foot, the discoloration about two inches in length and thin but dark enough to concern him.

“Of course not, darling, I just naturally make that face. Why isn't it in the bathroom?” MacKenzie demanded, her voice carrying over his head as she leaned forward. One of her hands hooked open a cupboard while the other lifted, her fingertips catching into his hair and tugging at it playfully. Will ducked his head into her teasing this time, still studying the bruising on her foot while enjoying her touch.

He made a questioning noise without realizing what she was saying at first, the words sinking in slowly as he tried to shake himself outta distraction. “The Naproxen? There's some in there too. It's next to the water.”

“In the shower caddy?” she teased quietly, idly flicking open one of the other cupboards so that she could explore (and likely memorize) its contents.

He smirked when her eyes widened brighter, excitement jolting her a little before she slipped her hand into the half open cupboard. It came back between them with an unopened box of Girl Scout cookies that he'd been guilted into buying off the grand-daughter of one of ACN's board members. The smile on his lips twitched higher on one side, a snort coming off him as she hugged the box into her chest and made a giddy little whimpering sound. Will pressed off from her knees, stroking off warm skin as he appreciated how deeply the unbuttoned top of his shirt made a 'V', one that led to a full box of Thin Mints.

_Thank Christ_ for Thin Mints. And Hugo Boss.

And the absolutely flawless breeding, the unimpeachable genetics of the great McHale line.

“Yes?” she asked, as though he'd actually tell her she couldn't have them.

Will just nodded, already moving backwards toward the fridge. If she was eating cookies... she'd want milk. She'd need milk, cold and colder, Ice-Tundra-Cold if possible. That he remembered.

Because then she'd likely steal the box to herself, save for the handful she force fed him just so that she could say she certainly had _not_ eaten the entire box of cookies by herself, she would _never_. He took two steps backwards and caught against the fridge handle, swinging it open so he could grab the milk before she asked for it.

“Why do you have painkillers in two separate rooms?” she asked again, drawing his attention back to the earlier question while her fingers worked open the box and he poured two glasses.

'Unimpeachable genetics' had been, maybe, too strong an estimation.

Because the fact that she had a pair of legs that could stop his fucking heart up was pitch balanced against the fact that she also said whatever it was that she thought and sometimes the Theory of Radical Honesty was less than welcome in polite company.

“I'm saying that in both rooms it's near water and... You're hilarious. The shower caddy? You're a riot. I mean that, babe. Really.” But then, the very fact that she said what she thought and, generally, genuinely right as she thought it, had him deeper in love with her than he had been before. If that was possible. Because it meant she was every bit as strong and confident and motivated as she had seemed when they'd first met. Fuck, she'd been a force. A glorious force. He'd never seen the like, not in a woman that looked and sounded like she belonged at High Goddamn Tea. “If you're walking on that ankle then it's obviously not broken. It's definitely swollen, though. Bed rest, McHale.”

For a blue-eye-apple-pie guy from Nebraska... she'd been some sort of torrential storm, a downpour and uprising at once. Something that had swept him up and under all at once. And the process of falling for her felt fresh and new, all over again.

Now she was eating cookies while he put the milk away, her bruised foot lifted awkwardly higher than the other, and his ring lived happily on her finger.

The world was simply amazing some days.

“Do I get to rest in your bed?” she asked, grinning appreciation as he carried both glasses to the open counter space beside her. There was a cute little shift of her butt on the counter, a twist of her hips and the injured foot lifted a little higher so that she could set one leg over the other. He couldn't help himself from leaning into her side, letting his weight press sideways into her thigh and knee. 

Will snorted humor between them, accepting the two cookies she'd lifted in his direction, her other hand already dipping her own into the cold milk. “You can do whatever you want in _our_ bed, Mrs McAvoy.”

“Not quite yet. I'm not counting my chicks until I'm wearing both rings.” She wiggled the fingers of her left hand up at him and he caught the sparkle off the considerable diamond in his peripheral but he kept his eyes on hers. He watched her face go more serious after a moment, her fingers lifting the sogged cookie between them and teasing it into his mouth. “Why do you have painkillers in two rooms? How often are you taking them, Will?”

He chewed and swallowed as quickly as he could, watching her dip her own cookie and hold it in the glass while waiting for an answer.

“That's a near full prescription from six months ago,” he told her softly, kept his voice even and warm and honest as he held her glance. After a moment of her silence he just shrugged and reached over her shoulder, spinning the rack around and grabbing the full bottle of medication. “Take some, you'll see. Full bottle.”

A brief look of scrutiny passed over her features as she took the bottle he'd offered up to her. Instead of opening it she made a show of eating her milk soggy cookie, a hum of pleasure coming up her throat but low and catching his attention as he watched her throat on the swallow.

“I'm not abusing meds, Mac,” he murmured, tapping against the bottle cap before lifting the first two cookies she'd given him. “Take the pills or you'll be up all night.”

“I didn't have to ask for the milk,” she murmured as he chewed, a smile hijacking her mouth. “You remembered.”

He slowly blinked, nodding his head closer to hers, the scent of mint and chocolate hazed up between them, “I remember all of you, MacKenzie. You were fucking impossible to forget. Trust me, I tried.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be answering your reviews in just a few minutes but, guys... You. Are. Awesome.  
> Thanks so much for making me feel welcome in a new-to-me fandom.  
> You've been very kind and supportive and I appreciate it. Love!!


	3. Chapter Three

She still didn't think that she entirely deserved everything that he was to her. For her or with her.

At least, not when he was really _really_ on his game – which he certainly had been of late. With his general ease and calm response to her goading, her intentionally trying to rile him into firing her after Genoa. And on to the way he'd proposed... just straight forward, achingly sincere, and _So. Fucking. Will._ To the fact that, yes, she had surreptitiously studied how many pills were left in the bottle and it was, actually, near completely full. Which meant he'd actually been taking care of himself and far better care than she'd directed toward _herself_.

And because, hell, he just generally excelled at being better and being more and being his best with her (mostly).

She couldn't figure out why it seemed that instead of reciprocating in kind, she always seemed to trip herself (and therefore, them) up. Lunatic antics and he'd forgiven them all. He made her... a blathering nitwit. She was an absolute Fruit Loop around him and still... years later... he gave her flutters. Right in the gut. Will McAvoy still had the ability to effortlessly make her feel nervous, girlish, awkwardly self-aware. But he also made her feel a whole new sort of sensational, beautiful, brilliant.

She didn't think she deserved him sometimes, never really had.

Wasn't that why she'd ended up back with Brian, really?

So, no, she still didn't think she necessarily deserved him but...

“But...” She'd come to accept the idea that she was going to take what she could get, deserving or not.

“What, Mac?”

Conceptually, somewhere outside of her emotions, outside of the haze of low-grade prescription painkillers, she knew that she was full of shit. Her worth as a romantic partner was not something to be measured and especially in regards to the man who very obviously loved her, and without question or concern. To the man who equally made _her_ better even as he told the world it was quite the other way 'round. The more analytical self in her head was half convinced that she was being just a bit puerile, to let herself dwell in negative thought patterns just to assuage her own guilty conscience. But on the up-side, every so often... it felt good to destroy what he thought she was and put him on the pedestal instead, reverse the way of worship. Even if it was just in her head.

When he wasn't being an ass (which had been happening less and less often).

When she wasn't being an absolute lunatic (which was possibly occurring with _more_ frequency).

When they, as a pair, weren't destroying their own lives together (it was what they were good at, really).

Maybe they'd finally, _finally_ , grown up a little bit in their relationship.

“Just...” She smirked, lifting her head so that she could wedge her chin onto the back of her hand, feeling her ring brush the side of her jaw. “Well, then where is the grocery list?”

“On the side of the fridge.” She felt his voice through the reverberation in his chest, the softness of it rising to his lips as he rubbed his face into her hair and made her feel even hazier. “I can make you a map of things?”

She couldn't save herself from giggling, not at first. Because he was sweet as hell and silly too, charming and gently offering to do what exactly? Make her a make-shift map on the back of a take-out menu? Or on the leftover ACN notepad he'd obviously stolen from the office and kept near the phone? The 'X' marked the extra rolls of toilet paper?? And why was it so damn funny? Christ, she couldn't save herself from all out laughing at the very idea of him making a map of his apartment.

Mac freely let the laugh rise up her throat, the feel and sound of it getting warmer and fuller as a sort of bemused hysteria took her over from the base of her lungs. She just couldn't help herself. He was the sweetest damn dork sometimes, even after all they'd fought through.

“You're actually serious,” she chuckled into his chest as he curled them up closer, drawing herself up a little so that she could press her face up between his neck and shoulder. His palm, large and comforting, cupped against the back of her head without any hesitation and she couldn't help humming agreement. Her laughter got smaller as she carefully shifted her knee up higher on his thigh, her injured foot gingerly bridged against his shin while he finally quietly chuckled along with her. There was still a throbbing ache in her ankle, one that threatened to spike back into full-blown pain if she moved wrong.

“It's not that funny,” he accused even as he swallowed the last of his own breathy laughter.

She made a hemmed noise that acted as response and comfort all at once, her hand flattening against him as she laid her head down, fingers between the tee he'd pulled on and her temple. Mac listened to him breathe, the steady assurance of its rhythm. She was just a little dazed by the drugs and enjoying the solid repetition of breath in his lungs. His fingers lifted from the back of her head and she closed her eyes into the feel of him wiping her hair back. Hell, she loved it when he did that, years on. And a sudden swill of jealousy went through her unchecked, jealousy and an incurable feeling of possession. She suddenly wanted every woman he'd touched in that same endearing way in the last six years to know that he was absolutely and utterly _off_ the market. No longer single, viable, or even a consideration. His name stricken from rolls and such.

She'd need a list of women to contact and, really, a way to trick him into giving it to her.

But Nina Howard most especially, really. Just... Nina drove her crazy. And especially when she felt like she just might have a drug induced handicap.

Maybe she'd order the other woman up a fruit basket and have it written on the card.

Or a hand delivered wedding invitation could do the trick nicely too...

“Can we get a new bed?” she asked distractedly, thoughts of Nina making her shift up higher against him so that she could swallow the smell of him closer. She felt his leg hair tickle the inside arch of her foot as she inched up higher and his chin clipped against her temple as he shifted to give her more room.

After a moment of consideration Will muttered an easy “Sure, I guess. I like this mattress style, though.”

Mac sighed out hard as she reached up under the shirt, rubbing her fingertips against warm bare skin.

That really _was_ unfair of her, to ask that of him. Considering their particular history?

Nina had been... Well, she was sure that her intentions had been...

Well... But her baser need to be liked or worshiped or feared was not at all what Will needed, and certainly not as a motivational tool. He needed to be mentally engaged, ethically and morally pushed challenged and educated, he needed -

“I was thinking a whole new place, actually.”

What?? How the hell stoned was she?

“Yes,” she unconsciously and excitedly agreed with him, head lifting so that she could meet the way he'd craned his neck to look down at her. She'd answered before realizing what she was even saying, vision half obscured by still slightly damp hair.

Wait... _What_??

“Yeah?”

Mac nodded agreement once again, blinking as she inhaled. She shifted up against him again and found that his hands had shifted along her ribs, rubbing into the fabric of the shirt she'd pulled on and half buttoned. Without a word she pressed up from both him and the mattress, leaning over his hips carefully so that she could gingerly ease the injured foot over him. Will curled his palms against her ribs, keeping her balanced and silently smiling as she leaned entirely over him and straddled his hips.

“Mac?”

“Absolutely, yes. Just _ours_. Ours, together.” She found that moment to entirely settle into his lap, grinding down carefully and smirking into the jump the movement put into his hips. A growl of warning came up his throat as both broad palms curved on her hips and dug in. Mac intentionally wiggled tighter down against him and she watched how lax his eyelids went in pleasure as she rolled her hips under his touch. He was half hard under her but, to be fair, he'd been that way for awhile already. And she liked the feel of him pressed into her thigh, insistent and consistent at once.

“Maybe out of Midtown. Or maybe Tribeca.”

Fuck, she loved getting his eyes to swirl bright and glossy and crystalline at once.

She considered it one of her most spectacular talents.

“Think I'm too old to live next door to Kate Winslet, hon. Maybe we just bite the white elitist asshole bullet.” He said it all swiftly and as though he was just finding the quickest and easiest of solutions to a shared problem. “Park West.”

She felt her own instinctual distrust color the way she looked at him and she tried to shake off any negativity, schooling her features back to neutral as he squinted and quietly watched her. She couldn't tell if he'd mentioned an astronomically priced address to tease her, taunt her, or test her. She'd been knocked back by his estimated worth when they'd sat down together one night after Sloan had thoroughly decimated her economic confidence (once again). The younger woman had mocked her about not being able to balance her own checkbook, without any true malicious intent, of course. Still, Will had offered to show her when he caught her out pouting and she was later absolutely positive that the offer had been more about him confessing how rich a man he actually was. At least, confessing it without having to say it aloud. He'd consolidated his own accounts to a few various amounts, the tallied totals of which had stopped up her heart and stunned her quiet. Which was a feat of its own, really – she wasn't a quiet woman.

So, because she was often smarter than he was, she just avoided the matter all together. “But we start with the bed?”

“Sure,” he grinned relief without realizing it, his glance traveling slowly down the front of her before pulling his stolen shirt into his bent fingers. He tugged her slowly downward, curling the fabric up in fistfuls as she exhaled a sigh. “We start in bed.”

A smile caught at her mouth and tugged in response to how low and gritted his voice had gone. Her head went back and forth minutely as she tried not to match his grinning, “Not what I said.”

A shrug of supposed apology pulled at his shoulders. “All I heard was something about you in bed.”

Mac put both hands to the mattress, framing his head between them as he leaned up into kissing her throat. It was impossible for her to do anything but moan into it at first, her eyes fluttering closed as the touch of his fingertips on her ribs matched the gentleness of his mouth just below her jaw.

“You are excellent at passive listening and selective hearing,” she muttered, voice barely sounding between them before she let out another hushed moaning.

Will snorted a laugh, his humor rushing warm on her ear as his voice dropped in both volume and register. “Says the woman who never shuts up and has a direct line to my ear and therefore my brain.”

“Shut up.”

“Copy that. C'mere,” he hummed into kissing her, his head turning strongly into the movement.

Fuck, fuck, _fuuuuuuuuck_.

She was really pretty horrible at rebuffing Will's sexual advances to begin with (she really rarely wanted to), regardless of supposedly important conversations. Any day of the week and the only time she could stall him off and really mean it was at work. It was way worse when she was still slightly buzzed and he was hard and arching up into her thigh and Jesus, Fuck, the man was still one of the most exquisite kissers. At least for her, anyhow. Maybe it was just the fact that it was Will. Maybe it was knowing what he tasted like. Maybe it was the lick of Charlie's bourbon and nicotine on his lips and the fervor with which he stroked his tongue against hers.

He'd always kissed her like that, from the first.

Like he'd known he was in love with her from the first time she'd accidentally muttered ' _Oh, fuck me_ ' as an expletive, grumping it over the IFB while the mic had been hot (of course).

It had been the first show they'd worked on together but their third episode.

That soon. He'd known _that soon_.

His head had come up just a fraction and he'd kept his features entirely neutral, blinking directly at the monitor with a simply whispered, “ _I didn't realize that was an option but I'm all for it, McHale_.”

She stalled up and sucked down a breath at the flash of memory, the hand that had curled along his throat pushing back at him gently, forcing his head into the pillow. His eyes were still just as star-tint bright and glittering. A disgruntled sound came off him and he went loose and lax against the bed, jamming his head into the pillows and giving her a perturbed look.

Mac angled her jaw to the left, eyes still on his. “Central Park? Really?”

His eyes lit with a smile before it ever touched his mouth and that's how she knew that whatever was about to come from his lips was legitimate, that it was Will, through and through. She'd never lost the ability to see his better angels, the ones that made his beautiful eyes brighten up. She thought that maybe, fleetingly, that was one of the things that had made it possible for them to get back here, to this place.

“You deserve it.” He was so genuine when he said things like that – it fucking slayed her dead. “Well, I deserve it, at least.”

MacKenzie laughed outright, with relief and love, the sound leading his hand up so that he could turn touches across her lips as she nodded agreement with his assessment. “I think you do. You really are rich and famous, huh?”

“I know some people. Some people know me.”

“What sorta people? Incarcerated people?”

“Some, yes. I happen to know incarcerated people.” He tapped against her lips playfully, making a face at her. “Not all your friends are Ivy League, Snooty McHale.”

“Are they incarcerated because you put them there?”

He gave her mischief in a grin as a response (and he looked _young_ ) as she nodded, continuing to speak. “So you're saying they probably aren't really your _friends_? And they'd likely have you killed while you're there?”

“I have plenty of friends.”

“Sure, there's me and Charlie,” she murmured, voice quieting down intimately as he pulled her up his chest and shifted. “And... me.”

“I love you,” he blithely ignored her teasing, drawing her carefully up with him.

“And Charlie. Maybe Sloan and Don, sometimes,” Mac continued, letting him lean the both of them up against the headboard. Once they were upright she angled her shoulder up and turned more toward him, sideways and her fingers lifting to intentionally muss his hair back off his forehead. He preened into the movement a little and reached for her leg in re-payment, lifting the injured foot tentatively up into his lap. “Jim is _my_ friend.”

“Sloan likes to style herself as _my_ little sister and,” he countered as she thread her fingers through his hair, sluicing it back repetitively, “know what? I don't need friends. I have an _audience_ , remember?”

“Leona adores you now,” she said after a hemmed noise of placation, her thumb rubbing his temple. “And Rebecca. You two have something special and I'd have cause to be jealous if I thought for one instant she'd actually have sex with a lawyer.”

Will turned his head toward her with a sleepily subtle smile, letting himself thump back entirely into the wall while he blindly started rubbing slow and feathered circles of pressure around her ankle.

“I'd point out that you have sex with a lawyer pretty consistently.”

“But I'm a journalist,” she shrugged, letting him stroke his palm from her ankle and up the back of her calf. She twitched slightly when his fingers teased the soft and thin skin at the back of her knee. “I have no morals whatsoever.”

Will just grinned, leaning into kissing her while his hand slid up her thigh, “Not that I've found under this pilfered shirt, no.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I want Nina Howard to know where you belong,” she whispered into his shoulder, feeling him go even looser and laxer beneath her as he dropped his head back into the wall. She shifted carefully higher against his chest, knowing she'd have to get up and go to the bathroom but wanting more of a cuddle before leaving the heat of him.

A sated and pleased sigh groaned off his lungs while she kissed his bare shoulder, chaste little kisses that rose up until she could suck lazily and lightly against the side of his neck. They were sweaty and sticky and the bedclothes were a right mess. His t-shirt was somewhere - actually, she didn't know where. The button down she'd stolen from him was open and she was fairly sure that he'd managed to break one or two buttons off.

“Non sequitur.” She felt him speak under the swipe of her tongue before she lifted her head tiredly.

He was devilishly cute when he was so thoroughly pleased with himself, with her. Because she couldn't help finding him attractive as he stretched his shoulders back and relaxed against the headboard, marks rising up red and welted on his shoulders and neck from where she'd unconsciously dug in.

He was sexed, mussed, sweaty, flushed and... _handsome_.

God, he was sexy sometimes. It was in his swagger, his brains, his nobility. Just _him_.

Mac shrugged, letting him draw a sweated line down the center of her, his fingers soft and slow while he traced down between her breasts. “I'm serious, Will. I want Nina Howard to know - ”

“Where I belong?” He was very obviously smiling, she could hear it in his voice even as she watched his hand instead of his face. His fingers followed farther down the front of his own unbuttoned shirt until he reached her abdomen and paused there, pressing against her skin. “Where's that?”

“With me.”

Because she smelled like sex and him. She could still taste his kisses along her bottom lip, could feel how pinked and swollen it was as she ran her tongue along where he'd nipped at her.

Because getting him hard may have started to take a little longer than it used to but, hell, she still didn't have a problem getting him to groan in just _that_ way while kissing the oxygen from her lungs.

Because her hips and thighs ached and her injured ankle throbbed past the netted haze of medication but it was all worth the twinges and aches and pains because he felt so damn good inside her.

She loved hearing him groan up a throttled version of her name as he came for her.

Because, in all actuality, _she_ was where he belonged.

“Mac, she's known that. Pretty much since...” A heavy sigh came off his lips as he leaned forward again, drawing a silken kiss off her before he met her eyes. “You know that she's always known, right? I mean, she's the one that told me how - ”

“And Erin Andrews as well. Maria. Susan Li and Jenna Lee. And Rachel - ”

“Maddow's a lesbian so, y'know,” he snorted out with a chuckle, “stop just listing random female broadcasters now.”

His mocking went mostly ignored as she tried to get the words out, her fingers tugging at him to draw him more seriously attentive. “And I want you. And I want us happy. And I like that you know I want the milk with the cookies before I have to ask.”

Will was looking at her like he knew an exact mathematical equation just to explain the combination of _them_ , 'him' plus 'her'. “I know that you do.”

“And I like that you let me wear the shirt off your back.”

He was seemingly lackadaisical and obviously still swoony after sex, blinking at her like his eyelids weighed ten tons a piece. “Any time, sweetheart.”

“And you're placating me now but I'm _not_ sorry for being unforgettable.”

That was when he laughed, loud and outright and he finally reached to draw her closer into a hug.

“What does any of that have to do with - ”

“Usually you love those shoes," she interrupted with a fidget in her tone. "They make my legs look miles longer than they actually are.”

“Yeah, they do,” he heartily agreed with one arm looped around her, the shirt bunched against her hips and waist and his other hand up under her jaw. “MacKenzie, what's going on?”

“We're engaged.” And the glacial rock on her finger proved it.

That smile again, that same damn smile.

Like he'd always known he'd be in love with her for always. “Yeah, we are.”

“As in... husband,” she whispered as she pointed to him and then herself, “wife.”

“Usually how it works in a heterosexual marriage, yup.” The agreement was teased against her lips before he kissed her sweetly.

“ _Will_.”

“Tell me the truth,” he implored, his tone going far more serious than it had. His palm cupped up her jaw and tamped tight to hold her still. “What in the fuck is going on? Because an hour ago it was the pills. Two hours ago it was not wanting to make a mess of _my_ floor and you need a map to my apartment. Now - ”

“Are you absolutely sure you want to marry me?” MacKenzie rattled off rapidly. “ _Me_. The woman who ruined your... broke your heart and ruined your career with- ”

“Stop, can I tell ya something? It's not a badge of honor, breaking somebody's heart.”

She flinched into the sudden darkness of his eyes. “I've never - ”

“But it's not a Scarlet Fucking Letter either, all right?” And his glance softened as his face took on a thoughtful look. “It happens. Human being to human being? We fuck each other up and it happens all over the world, every damn day, every minute of the day. In multiple languages and in technicolor. You did damage? Well, so did I. But y'know what I finally realized?”

Bright blue eyes and love and too much knowledge in his eyes, passing pain and an unmitigated knowing. “All humans are clumsy and you're the only one on the planet that I trust to break me, Mac.”

She cracked a little, body slumping as she shook her head at him. “How can you _ever_ trust me again?”

“Sweetheart, you're never gonna do what you've already done to me. Know how I know?”

She shook her glance away and even as she tried to avoid his eyes both his hands lifted to frame her face, forcing her to meet his glance and meet him in the conversation. MacKenzie bit against her bottom lip, blinking at him silently instead of responding to what she assumed was a pretty rhetorical question. That or a leading one. Regardless, she just studied his face while he stroked his thumbs one her cheekbones.

“You broke your own heart into smaller pieces than y'broke mine. Cuz here I am, picking up the very last of the pieces while I promise to buy you a bed that I haven't had sex with Nina Howard in, okay? Are we good?”

She winced and drew away from his hands, a sustained pull on her features as her lashes fluttered unintentionally, a hand lifted in an unconscious 'Stop' motion. “As far as my conscious mind is concerned the two of you never _actually_ had sex, Will.”

He narrowed her a dubious look (one that actually made him look _more_ handsome – how was that possible?). “Just naked pillow fights?”

“God, that's a ghastly mental image,” Mac murmured as she leaned away from him, both hands up and waving uncomfortably between them.

Sometimes, when her accent was particularly strong on one single word, he couldn't save himself from grinning idiotically. And she noted the way his jaw twitched upward on 'ghastly', a smile crashing across his lips. He eyed her for a moment, watched her with a look on his face that was utterly charmed, obviously smitten. Mac enjoyed it, enjoyed how brazenly he loved her these days, without censure, caution, or guilt.

“Oh,” Will grabbed at both her hands, tugging her back into the smell and heat of him by her fingers as he nodded into raising his voice just slightly, “you and Brian doing just a small percentage of the things you've written about in e-mails that - ”

“Okay, all right. I get it.”

“Do you?” he asked sharply.

Mac nodded quickly, leaning forward so that she could nuzzle into how warm he was. “I do.”

Will let her snug in closer, his hands coming up against her once she finally stopped fussing and fidgeting. One palm pressed up under the shirt and went full flat along her lower back. The other lifted so that he could pull as much hair back from her face as he could manage with only five fingers. Mac hummed pleasure into the touch and let him clutch her hair back in a sweated mess of a knot, his mouth turned against her temple. She felt him breathe out against her hairline and she sighed, drawing her arms up between them so that she could cocoon into the comfort of him just being him, being bigger and stronger than her.

“I miss those emails. I miss what you were like after I sent you one.” A chuffed sound of laughter went into her hair after she'd said it and she grinned in answer, nodding as he breathed in. “Honestly, Billy, we took a door half off its hinges once.”

“I was younger then, hon.”

“Yeah, but maybe - ”

“Yeah, but maybe you shouldn't go anywhere near emails in the near future. Certainly not if you're in that particular mood” he teased. The tone was purposely soft and bemused, nothing aggressive or guilting or accusing about it. She still frowned at the memory of texting the entire staff, burying her face in the center of his chest as he tightened her hair up in his fist. “Text me, though. _Just me_.”

She grinned hard in answer, listened to him sigh out a tired exhale as he rubbed up her back. “I like the idea of getting a new place together.”

“I like the idea of marrying you.” Her head lifted higher suddenly and she caught his glance, caught how bright his eyes were even while brimmed up with exhaustion. “I _am_ happy, Will.”

“I think it's the first time both of us have been happy at once in about - ”

“Six years?” Mac interrupted, her smile gone impish.

“Yeah,” he whispered, both hands brushing her hair back and holding it still as he grinned. “Exactly.”


End file.
